£85 million for the Northern Hub

The Northern Way and an unconventional planning process has helped provide a solution that will bring significant benefits to the people and economy of the North of England.

In his March Budget, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced government funding of £85m for the first phase of the Northern Hub.

The Northern Hub is the solution to central Manchester, the most significant rail bottleneck in the North of England. The first phase of work includes the construction of a new railway viaduct which will, for the first time, allow trains to run direct between Manchester’s two principal stations – Piccadilly and Victoria.

The Northern Hub will allow a much more efficient operation of the Manchester rail network. It will deliver economic benefits by increasing the network’s capability and capacity for commuter-focused services, inter-regional services and links to Manchester Airport, the busiest and best-connected airport in the North of England. It also adds capacity for freight.

The importance of solving the rail capacity problem in and around Manchester was identified by the Northern Way in 2006. Steer Davies Gleave has been the Northern Way’s lead transport advisor for the last five years.

In 2007 we helped the Northern Way set out the evidence of why solving the Manchester rail capacity problem was so important to the North’s economy. In response to this evidence, in autumn 2007, the then Transport Minister Rosie Winterton announced that work would start to identify a solution.

We then turned the conventional transport planning process on its head and developed for the Northern Way and its partners what was called the Conditional Output Statement. Most often a solution is developed and its economic case is tested. With the Conditional Output Statement, we first identified what types of service enhancements would deliver the most benefits. Network Rail then went on to find the most cost-effective way of delivering these. This is the Northern Hub solution, an investment with a benefit cost ratio of 4:1 which will deliver benefits not just to Manchester, but to the whole of the North of England.

Steer Davies Gleave sets up Northern Way transport archive

The Northern Way was the collaboration of the three northern regional development agencies, with the goal of increasing the rate of economic growth of the North of England. Enhancing the North’s transport connectivity was a central theme for the Northern Way. As part of the process of abolishing the English regional development agencies, the Northern Way closed for business on 31st March 2011. As the Northern Way’s lead transport advisor we have set up a website that will keep readily accessible the transport evidence base developed by us and others for the Northern Way: www.northernwaytransportcompact.com